Hi, new Festy owner.. and asking for help. :)

[darrenryall]

Been lurking on the forum for about a week after I picked up a 93 Festy GL from a gent just down the road. Am near Edmonton AB Canada.

Car came with a spare engine and tranny in the back, three boxes of parts, second door and hatch.. great deal.

So the old wagon I have decided to start smelling like I was driving a septic tank (catalytic converter?), so I thought I'd take the Festy out on the road.

1.3L, automatic (converted from standard, original motor and standard are in the back of the car). Runs fine, lets me get up to the Pick-u-Part to get the missing left signal cover, 250+ kms. Brake lights aren't working (fuses I think from reading here) but all else seems to run fine.

So, here's where it gets weird.

Coming home last night, the temperature on the dash starts to drop near zero. Car starts to surge, engine light comes on. Then goes off. Car starts to sputter and cough. I'm smelling a smell something like bubble gum. Manage to sneak it into the next town (about 20km/12 miles) like this going anywhere between 20km to 80km an hour (12-15 to 50 mph). Shoulder of road, four ways on. Surging and engine act-up is rhythmic.

Get in, rad is low, so I top it up. (Going by temperature drop down to almost nothing). Get home after another 60 kms (35 miles) of similar behaviour. Wondering.. does this sound computer related? Or fuel? Came on suddenly so it makes me think initially fuel.. but on the other hand, that behaviour is really regular, which makes me think computer..

Appreciate the help guys, from what I've been reading.. this seems to be a helpful forum.

[darrenryall]

Hello? Anyone?

Bueller? Bueller?

:simon: not running properly..

Could watered down fuel cause such a regular surging and bring the engine light on? Am I right on it being the computer, or is a fuel filter (or fuel pump) to blame? If so, why would the engine light be coming on in that fashion?

Will we ever see another Darkwing Duck cartoon? Just trying to think of something that may get a response here..

Like to make the Festiva a daily driver, and I also need to figure out how to pop the back hatch without destroying the lock mechanism.. the guy that sold me the car gave me the wrong key for it (I also thought that maybe it was a valet key I had until I realized that the more likely scenario is that he just busted the ignition lock, and read here that the Festivas don't have a valet key).

[Pu241]

Welcome and thanks for putting your location in!

As for your problem I'm Guessing gas issue.
Easy to determine or fix.
The festiva has a drain plug or you can add a gas drying agent (methanol or isopropanol based) Heet/Seafoam/Isoheet ect. will work.
Think I'd at least drain some gas out to see if you have crude that maybe blocking your filter. Believe it or not on member pulled the fuel pump/sending unit because he was having issues and found a dead mouse in his tank.
reassembled and no more problems.

Did the car initial run OK?
At what fuel level did it start to act finny?

Another possibility is that you still may be low on coolant and the computer is getting data from sensors it doesn't know how to interpret.
Check your radiator fill level and let us know.

ECU's have failed, but not often, I'd rather diagnose the problem and replace a single component than have you switching all sorts of parts.
So you need to let us know what you find so we can provide useful info.

[darrenryall]

Wonderful! Thanks for the reply!

Welcome and thanks for putting your location in!

Not a problem.. usually it's not an issue, but here, I can definitely see where having the location would help.

As for your problem I'm Guessing gas issue.
Easy to determine or fix.
The festiva has a drain plug or you can add a gas drying agent (methanol or isopropanol based) Heet/Seafoam/Isoheet ect. will work.

Drain plug.. in the gas tank somewhere? I think the corner gas staton may carry a gas drying agent.. brands are all different up here, but I think STP Gas Treatment might have a methanol additive to it. Seafoam.. that's oil added, or gas added? (Seen it referenced in another post).

Think I'd at least drain some gas out to see if you have crude that maybe blocking your filter. Believe it or not on member pulled the fuel pump/sending unit because he was having issues and found a dead mouse in his tank.
reassembled and no more problems.

This Festiva was in a farmers field, I could see how dirt could get in the tank... hope that a mouse isn't the issue, haven't got the space to drop the tank where it's warm (we're sitting around 34 degress F right now (+2C), but tonight it's going to drop to around 5-7 (-12 of so C).

Did the car initial run OK?

Once the new battery was in, ran beautifully for about 150 miles (250km).

At what fuel level did it start to act finny?

Car initally came with almost no gas, filled it at my corner gas station, drove it about 100 miles (160km) or so before it started acting up. Needle was still around F

Another possibility is that you still may be low on coolant and the computer is getting data from sensors it doesn't know how to interpret.
Check your radiator fill level and let us know.

Will check the fluid level a little bit later this afternoon.. and have some more 50/50 (anitfreeze and water) mix I can put in if I need. Need to have antifreeze in there, we're still maybe going for another -40 (same in both scales, just cold) before mid-March.

ECU's have failed, but not often, I'd rather diagnose the problem and replace a single component than have you switching all sorts of parts.

True enough.. with the other motor and tranny though, I got what he called the "standard computer" (I assumed that he meant ECU for a manual tranny). And I got a spare for both.. there's two other ECUs marked STD and AUTO in one of the parts boxes.

So you need to let us know what you find so we can provide useful info.

Will do.. as I said, it came on pretty quickly. Drove it into the city and back for work twice without much of an issue.. it was only on the way back home the second time that it started to sputter and I got the engine light. Then it was 10-50 mph (20-80kmh) the rest of the way home, seemed to be about a 45 second cycle or so on average where it'd act up, engine light would come on, cough sputter, drop right down in speed.. then it'd "catch it's breath", and we'd get up to road speed again. Seemed almost like a smoker's cough.

Because it was so rhythmic and the guy saying that he'd swapped the motor/tranny and computer so his non-manual driving wife could drive the car (and then she didn't so he sold it to me), that's what made me think it's the computer possibly. Car seems to run okay at idle speed btw, it's when it hits (as a guess because there's no tach) around 3500 rpm or so that it starts to act up.

Again, thanks for the reply!

[Pu241]

Just going to quickly answer some things!

Drain plug.. in the gas tank somewhere? I think the corner gas staton may carry a gas drying agent.. brands are all different up here, but I think STP Gas Treatment might have a methanol additive to it. Seafoam.. that's oil added, or gas added? (Seen it referenced in another post).

Drain plug on the bottom of the tank, 17 or 19mm hex bolt.
Might try and get pic for you if I can manage to get back up after I get down there to get the pic.
Seafoam can be used in both oil and gasoline/diesel.
In this case add it to the gas tank as per the instruction on the can or whatever drying agent you can find.
But I'd first open the drain and see what you get.
No use wasting $ on fuel additives if fuel tank has crud in it or a bunch of water.
Water and crud will be on the bottom of the tank so should come out first.
Put drained liquid in a clear, glass is best, container to see if you have water and/or crud.

This Festiva was in a farmers field, I could see how dirt could get in the tank... hope that a mouse isn't the issue, haven't got the space to drop the tank where it's warm (we're sitting around 34 degress F right now (+2C), but tonight it's going to drop to around 5-7 (-12 of so C).

Tank doesn't have to be dropped to gain access to the inside of the fuel tank if you have to clean out crud.
Kia saw fit to put an access port under the seat/carpet to get to the top of the tank to pull the pump/sending unit if need be.
More on that if you need it later.

Once the new battery was in, ran beautifully for about 150 miles (250km).
Car initally came with almost no gas, filled it at my corner gas station, drove it about 100 miles (160km) or so before it started acting up. Needle was still around F!

Just a guess, but I think there was gas in it at one time and over the time it sat, it went bad and turned to crud. Filling the tank permited you to run till the filter in the tank started to get clogged with crud. Again just conjecture till we have evidence.

Will do.. as I said, it came on pretty quickly. Drove it into the city and back for work twice without much of an issue.. it was only on the way back home the second time that it started to sputter and I got the engine light. Then it was 10-50 mph (20-80kmh) the rest of the way home, seemed to be about a 45 second cycle or so on average where it'd act up, engine light would come on, cough sputter, drop right down in speed.. then it'd "catch it's breath", and we'd get up to road speed again. Seemed almost like a smoker's cough.

Don't do it till we see if there crud in the tank, and remove it.
But, I'd bet if you filled the tank it would run better because you'd dilute the crud clogging the filter and more gas gets in. The increased pressure from more fuel in the tank probably helps too.
Awaiting data before we proceed!

[freshtiva]

Start your car(cold) with the radiator full and cap off and see if the coolant blows out the top.

[Pu241]

Warped head

Possible

Worth checking, it's free!

But with mine warped, badly, it did not exhibit cyclical behavior such as he has described.

[freshtiva]

Dont know either but I could see how it would explain all the symptons. No temp..no coolant. Surging... air sucking in , along with coolant mixing with fuel. Low coolant ... its going somewhere. Bubble gum smell ?? Im speculating !

[darrenryall]

Some good news!

I had some gas-line antifreeze here (methyl alcohol) and added that to the tank. Then piled the kid in, and took it for a "test drive to mix the gas" and see if that'd help.

One surging session near the beginning (complete with check engine light), and then... nada. Got it into the next nearest town (the one where they weren't selling the gas that I bought), and dropped about 3 gallons in (about 15 litres). Also added some of the aforementioned STP Gas treatment which contains methyl alcohol and a couple more things), and it looks like it's fine (for today).

All the usual triggers wouldn't trigger another surging session. I'm chalking this one up as buying too cheap gas with a bad mix. I'm going to try driving 'er in to work tomorrow, and we'll see where it is for sure on the 120 mile (180 kn) round trip.. but today was promising.

Also managed to get my back hatch open today (which was a feat because I have the wrong key), found the unlock on the inner part of the door mechanism, and was able to open it up. Moved the engine farther back, and got the back seat mostly in place now. Just need to grab a friend now to lift the motor out, and I think I'm good to go.

I think I was overanalyzing.. when the guy who sold me the car said that he thought that it had a bad computer, he could've done the same thing I did.. bought bad gas from the same place I bought it.

So, in a few days.. on to the next big things.. finding out what's going on with the alternator and cleaning the seats of all the grease that the last guy got on them.

Thanks a lot guys for pointing me in the right direction, I was about to make a lot of extra work for myself.. (let you know how it shapes up over the next few days).

[batstiva]

Curious if after you topped off the rad. and drove the rest of the way home, if you lost additional coolant, or if it stayed put? Assuming even after you topped the coolant, there was no change in the temp gauge, correct?

I'm sort of leaning towards crud in the tank/ bad watered down gas myself. Have you had a chance to drain the tank, or pop the panel under the back seat and see what it looks like in the tank?

[darrenryall]

Curious if after you topped off the rad. and drove the rest of the way home, if you lost additional coolant, or if it stayed put? Assuming even after you topped the coolant, there was no change in the temp gauge, correct?

It seemed to stay put.. which to me suggested no leaks. Thinking that the bubble gum smell was a boil over from little fluid in the rad now..

I'm sort of leaning towards crud in the tank/ bad watered down gas myself. Have you had a chance to drain the tank, or pop the panel under the back seat and see what it looks like in the tank?

Never got a chance to do either.. there's an engine and tranny on top of the panel. My wife made me promise that I wouldn't try and take it out of the car by myself, but I'm not breaking the promise by moving it right to the back of the hatch and putting the seat back down so I could push back my seat to drive comfortably.

Btw guys, the pic below is really what I plan to do with the car.. want to try DJ's straight grill mod, add some running lights and do the third brake light mod. May go as far as the Escort station wagon rear wiper mod as well. The paint job will be the easy part.

[batstiva]

Kind of forgot you said there was all that stuff in the back. :banghead:

Any idea how long it sat in the farmer's field?
Hope when you get a chance to crack it open, you don't find either a mouse, or what Hermit found in his tank.

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23528

[darrenryall]

Kind of forgot you said there was all that stuff in the back. :banghead:

Any idea how long it sat in the farmer's field?
Hope when you get a chance to crack it open, you don't find either a mouse, or what Hermit found in his tank.

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=23528

Best guess, it sat there from Nov 2007 to Jan 2010. Old bill of sale was in the glovebox showing that date..

[Pu241]

I predict when you burn off the gas you just put in, the behavior will return.
I hope I'm wrong!

Possible that your alternator issue and check engine light are the real cause of the problem you are having.
Do you know how to extract the code from the computer for why the check engine light was triggered?
Just have to collect more data before spending money on parts.

[darrenryall]

I predict when you burn off the gas you just put in, the behavior will return. I hope I'm wrong!

Well, found a big trigger today. Canada is cold this time of year. Sounds really simple, and I missed it.

I started off to work this morning, in-town.. no problems. Got the car on the road, less than 2 miles later.. cough and sputter. Limped it into my usual stop, and grabbed some cardboard to put over 3/4's of the rad. And got to work with no problems. Temperature at the time, around 26 degrees or so (a balmy -3C).

Coming home, a bit colder (17 or so/-9C or so).. had to stop three times to get the heat gauge back around midway.. then was able to drive home. So, I think things are getting cold, which is triggering the issue. Warm car=no problem.

Possible that your alternator issue and check engine light are the real cause of the problem you are having.
Do you know how to extract the code from the computer for why the check engine light was triggered?

No, haven't found that thread as of yet.. and it'd be good to know.

Just have to collect more data before spending money on parts.

So far, fix attempts have consisted of less than $10 for gas-line antifreeze and STP Gas Treatment. Cardboard was free.

No parts swapped yet.. and the car is running better. Just not the way that it should yet, and I don''t want to cook the engine trying to keep the temp midpoint or above..